The Walking Man
by Garrison A. Grey
Summary: When Peter and Neal are brought a stolen sculpture case by one of Peter's old friends, Fred Jones, Peter sends Neal undercover at Fred's private detective company because Fred is afraid that there is a mole in the investigation.


"Morning Peter."

Peter is standing at Neal's desk waiting for him.

"You're late. Why?"

"Alright you caught me."

Neal holds up a brown paper bag and says, "Alright, you caught me. It's my new fix."

"What is it?"

"Well if a doughnut and a croissant gave each other a very special hug, you would get this."

Peter gives Neal a look and then says, "Well you can eat you pastry in the conference room, we have a new case and it's a good one."

The two of them start to walk toward the stairs to the conference room.

"Great," Neal says as he drops the pastry on Jones's desk, "What is it this time? Hidden treasure, art forgery or maybe even a submarine?"

"No, it's a...where did your doughnut croissant thing go?"

"Oh, Jones looked like he needed a pastry.''

"Go sit down." Peter tells neal as they walk into the room. In the room there are the usual people; Jones, Diana, and some other agents. In the back of the room there is one man that Neal had never seen before. He obviously wasn't an FBI agents. He was wearing a bright blue suit, a white shirt and a orange ascott. Neal then went about listening to Peter start to discuss the case.

"Alright everyone let's get started." Peter says this as he drops his case file on the table, "Everyone this is Mr. Fred Jones, he is an old friend of mine from quantico."

Fred walks to the front of the room and starts talking. "Thankyou Peter."

"Fred is the leader of a private detective company and he has come across a case that has become a problem."

Fred continues, "yes, this case has been our toughest yet."

"One weak ago on September sixteenth the owner of this sculpture…"

He puts the image of the sculpture on the screen and begins to say something but is cut of by Neal.

"Oh the walking Man number one made by Alberto Giacometti. That sold in an auction a couple of years ago for around one hundred and four million dollars."

Fred corrects him, "One hundred and four point three two seven million to be exact."

The room suddenly get s quiet and Neal begins to make a whole slew of observations about Fred.

"As I was saying," continues Peter, "The owner of this piece reported that it had been stolen on september sixteenth from their home in Midtown Manhattan. We will be working with Fred and his team to recover this sculpture and return it to its owner. Thankyou. You are dismissed."

All of the agents in the room get up and leave the conference room. Neal then gets up and goes down the stairs to his desk and begins to watch as Agent Burke begins to talk to Fred.

"In here Fred."

They walk into Peter's office and Fred begins to talk with Peter. "Thankyou again for helping me with this case, it's been such a problem for us. We had spent so many man hours working on this and then all of our evidence just turned into a dead end, out of nowhere all of our leads just went cold."

"Hey my pleasure Fred. Anything for an old friend."

Peter sits down and motions Fred to do the same.

"So what do you have planned for the case?"

"Well I have Jones heading up a task force that is interviewing the victims, seeing if they can get anymore info on the theft."

"That sounds great. What can me and my team do? What can we bring to the table?"

"If it's ok I would like to go over to your headquarters and get all of the data and files that you have come up with."

"That seems one to me. When would you want to come get them?"

"I was thinking that Neal and I would come over to get them after you and me are done."

"Ok. I will have Velma, our person in charge of keeping all the files, have them ready for you."

"Great. And I would also like to sit down with your team and go over what they have come up with so far. You said that one of you members had found some evidence at the crime scene?"

"Yes, 'Shaggy' and 'Scooby' found a business card at the scene. It was for a male fragrance company. Me and my team went there to question the owed but it turned out to be a dead end."

"Ok thank you for this information Fred. I will head over to you headquarters with Neal right now."

Peter gets up and starts to walk towards the door. He opens the door when Fred starts in.

Peter gets up to walk out of the room but Fred stops him,"Hey and one more thing. Peter, my team doesn't know that you work for the FBI so if you could keep that on the down low for a little bit that would be helpful."

Peter shuts the door and walks closer to Fred.

"Of course, but can I ask why?"

"Well you remember that it was just like all of our leads just went cold in a moment, i'm started suspecting that some on in our company was tampering with evidence. That is the real reason why I came to you for help. Because there might be more than one crime now."

"Ok. Thank you for telling me that."

"If it's ok I would like your permission to put one of your people undercover in Mystery Inc. to try and uncover anything in case someone is leaking information and or sabotaging evidence."

"Of course, think I know just the guy for this job."

After this Peter leaves the room and is followed by Fred. They walk down the stairs and Peter stops at Neal's desk but Fred continues and walks out the door and gets into an elevator. Peter stoops at Neal's desk and says,"Alright Neal let's go"

Neal gets up, grabs his hat, does a little trick with it, smiles, and then walks out with Peter.

"So where are we going?" Neal asks Peter. They are now in the car driving to Fred's headquarters. Peter is about to say something to Neal when before he can speak Neal starts in and says,"are we about to go to their super secret headquarters at Mystery Inc. Peter how could you not tell me that they are called this. This name sounds like it was made by a bunch of kids."

"Well it was. Him and a couple of his friends used to solve mysteries around their town when the were in junior high and high school. After high school the just decided that it was time to move on so they went their different ways. After Fred finished at Quantico he was assigned here in New York in the in white collar with me. He was working on a case when he ran into the original members of what they called 'Mystery Inc." and they helped him solve the case and after they decided to reform the group and do it professionally. That is how Mystery Inc. became a legit business."

"That sounds like the plot of a cartoon from the 70's that turned into a movie in the early two thousands."

"Very funny Neal."

After talking for a while in the car the arrived at the Mystery Inc. headquarters. They walk in and are greeted by Fred. He welcomes them in and invites them to follow him through the building. The building is very modern with lots of big computer screens with all kinds of information about different cases on them. There is a large area in the middle of the main area of the building, a kind of grand hall at the center of a massive opera house, but smaller and with lots of bright colors. In that area there are nice couches and sitting on one of those couches in a sharp looking man in a nice suit. The man gets up and walks over to Fred, Peter, and Neal. Fred introduces the man, "Peter, Neal, this is 'Shaggy'."

'Shaggy' reaches out and shakes the man's hand.

"It's nice to meet you gentlemen. Is this the person you are considering to join Mystery Inc.? "

Fred answers, "Yes, this is Neal."

Fred directs 'Shaggy's attention toward Neil and then he shakes his hand.

Neal answers by saying, "It's a pleasure to meet you too shaggy."

Fred continues,"Shaggy here is in charge of the uncovering of evidence and undercover operations. Speaking of undercover that's where your partner 'Scoob' is doing right now, right?"

Shaggy replies, "That is true Fred, he is currently following a new lead on another case."

"That's great.", says Fred. "Thankyou Shaggy."

"No Problem. Well gentle men I have got to get back to work so I will see you later."

Shaggy walks away and goes into another room and closes the door. Them men continue to walk throughout the building. After just a while they run into another person. This time it is a very attractive women in a dark purple dress. Fred walks up to her, puts his arm around her and says to the men, "This my friends is my fiancé Daphne is in charge of keeping all of the records, files, and evidence."

Daphne greets the men and shakes their hands. She then says, "You must be the new agent that Fred was telling me about."

Neal answers, "That's me, Neal."

He shakes her hand and she gives him a weird look as if she were trying to flirt with him. Neal not knowing what to think just takes back his hand and follows Fred and Peter who have gone farther down along the wall of office. Fred stops at an office along the wall and says to Neal, "well this is going to be your office."

In the office is a women in a pair of white pants with a white shirt and an orange blazer. The women gets up and introduces herself. She says, "Hello, my name is Velma. I assume you are Neal?"

Neal answers, "Yes, how did you know?"

Shaggy told me just a second ago that the new member was here and I assumed that you would take this office."

"Very nice."

Fred starts in, "Yes Velma is over all of our technologies and any kind of numbers."

"Well I just wanted to come and see what you were all about so i will be off to my Numbers." Velma walks out the door of the office and into a big laboratory.

The men walk into the office and shut the door behind them. Fred begins to talk to Peter and Neal, "So Neal I will have you working with each member of the team so you can try and get a read on them and any evidence that one of them is doing anything illegal."

Neal asks, "Fred do you have any people in specific that you think is the one behind this?"

"Not necessarily just one of them, they all have given some kind of indication that it could be them. So i'm not really sure."

"Ok thank you. I will do my best to get you your man, or woman."

The men continue to talk about this case and offer maybe twenty minutes Neal and Peter leave the room. They say goodbye to everyone and once again Daphne give Neal a flirtatious look and a flirty farewell. The two men get in the car and the start to drive away.

Soon after this the men arrive at the FBI offices and go up to their floor.

After about two week of undercover work at Mystery Inc. Neal comes back the Bureau to meet with peter. They walk into Peter's office and start to talk. Peter asks Neal, "So did you get any reads on any of the people in that place?"

"Well of them seemed to have a little of something to hide. However the one who I kept think they were the one who was guilty was daphne. Every time I would talk to her she would try to make a move on me."

"Don't tell me you aren't used to that."

Peter smiles at Neal like he has just made the joke of the century, but Neal just gives him a blank look.

"Not like that Peter. It was more of a cover. Like she was trying to hide something."

"Well you know that we can't move on that alone."

"Yes, I know."

"So what else do you have on her."

"Well I talked to Shaggy quite a bit and he would tell me about all the people who worked there and whenever Daphne came up it was like he didn't want to talk about her. I finally got him to open up to me about it and he said that for years she had treated him really well and that it seemed that all of the sudden she just became a different person. She started being more controlling around there, she would call him into her office just to yell at him, she even tried to get Fred to fire him, which he did not do. He tried to think about what could have made this happen but all he could was that she was on an undercover op and after that is when she changed. He went to go see what had happened, but when he did the file had been deleted. He went to see the paper copy but it was missing. He got suspicious that she was doing something illegal but when he talked to Fred about it he denied that she could do that. He said that after the Walking Man heist that she started to act even weirder than normal and evidence went missing. Fred then started to listen to Shaggy. Which is why he called you."

Peter gets up and walks toward the window of his office.

"Well that is a lot of good info but still not enough to put her away."

Peter keeps looking out the window trying to think of something they could do to catch Daphne. Neal is doing the same thing in his seat when he remembers something that he noticed.

"Peter I think I have something. Everyday at the same time she always goes out to lunch at some fancy restaurant after she gets back she goes into her office locks the door, which she does not do on a regular basis, then she reaches into one of her drawers and pulls out a cellphone and talks to some random person for at least ten minutes. Then she puts away the phone and gets up to unlock her door. I think that she is talking to the job with."

"How do you know that she pulled the job with someone else?"

"Well after going over the files I started to realize that she couldn't have done it on her own, the job is simply too hard for someone like her who is not a career criminal."

"If we could prove that she is talking to and accomplice of to a fence we could get he for intent to sell stolen goods. Which could lead to more do you think that you could sneak into her office and plant a bug on that phone?"

Neal gives Peter a look and Peter says,"You're right. Why would I ask a question I know the answer to."

Neal gets up and leaves the office.

The next day Neal goes into Mystery Inc. and waits around until Daphne goes to lunch. Once she leaves, he gets up and goes to Daphne's office and cracks the door. The starts to go through the drawers and eventually he finds the phone. He starts to take apart the phone when he sees Daphne walk back in the building. He puts the phone back together real quick, puts it in the drawer and shuts it, then he grabs a case file that is on her desk and starts to walk out the door of the office. On his way out of the office however, he runs into daphne and she says, "Hey Neal. What were you doing in my office?"

"Oh I was just getting a file I needed for a case i'm woking."

Daphne starts to get a little suspicious and she says to Neal, "So do you have any plans for lunch?"

"No actually I don't."

"Well how about you come with me then?"

"I'm not sure. How would Fred feel?"

"Oh he would be fine with it."

"Well if you say so. Let's go"

The two walk out of the building and get into a black Rolls Royce and Daphne tells the driver to go ahead. After a little bit of driving they arrive at not a restaurant but a super nice mansion. Daphne says to Neal, "I have the chef cooking an amazing meal."

They walk through the front doors and then go into the dining room where there is an amazing meal waiting for them. After they eat lunch she tells Neal to follow her. They walk up the stairs into her bedroom and she tells him to sit on the bed, that she would be right back. He waits for a minute maybe two and then she returns in a silk robe. She gets in front of him, leans in close, and whispers in his ear, "Who are you?"

She backs away suddenly and pulls out a gun and yells, "Who are you and what are you doing?!"

Neal knows that he has been caught so he starts to explain, "My name is Neal Caffery, I am a CI for the FBI White Collar division. I am looking into the Walking Man case."

"I Knew it!"

She continues to point the gun at him but he starts to talk to her, "It's ok Daphne, you can put the gun down. I know you don't want to do this."

"No. It's too late for don't understand."

"I don't understand what? The fact that you and someone else stole the Walking Man sculpture and now you can't get rid of it. I can help you."

Daphne starts to think about it for a second but then realizes that he works for the FBI and wouldn't be able to help, "No you can't, you work for the FBI."

"Yes but I can do it without them knowing. We can split the cash."

"No this is just a trap to get me to confess to another crime."

"Well it was worth a shot."

Neal starts to walk towards Daphne and she starts to pull the trigger and close her eyes so she wouldn't have to watch herself kill a man

All of the sudden a loud noise comes from the down stairs a a bunch a of FBI agents barge into the room. Agent Burke is in front of all of them and he yells, "Daphne, put the gun down!"

Daphne, knowing that she has been caught puts the gun on the ground and a bunch of agents come over and arrest her.

Peter walks over to Neal and says, "It's a good thing you brought a little more tech this time."

Neal pulls out the eagle pen and gives it to Peter. "I knew you would be listening Peter."

The two walk out of the room and finish the arrest.

The next day back in the office Neal watches from his desk as Peter talks to Fred about the case and tells him that they recovered the sculpture. He then watchs as Fred walks out of Peter's office and down to his. Neal stands up and shakes Fred's hand as Fred says, "Thank you for your help on this case."

Neal responds by saying,"Your welcome."

Neal replies by saying, "Thank you Fred but I think I will stay here for a while."

Fred nods his head then he turns and walks out the door.

Neal goes up to Peter's office and says that he is leaving, goes down to his desk, picks of his hat, does a little trick, smiles and walks out of the building.


End file.
